Here’s a little holiday gift for you. Goldstar is a free service that offers huge discounts on live entertainment, like theater, comedy, sports, music, performing arts and even things like wine tastings, sushi making classes and rodeos.

When you sign up, you can tell Goldstar what kinds of things you like to do, and each week they will send you an email listing local upcoming events that you might be interested in. I’ve been a member for a few years and have spent a lot of good hours at events that I might not have attended if Goldstar hadn’t told me about them, or given me a huge discount. I’ve been to major performances like Cirque du Soleil and shows at the ACT, and have also laughed my head off at a BATS Improv performance, and salsa’d down at the “Bagels and Bongos: A Fusion of Jewish and Latino Sounds.”

If you live in the Bay Area (or another of the 8 metropolitan areas they serve) and ever leave your house, I don’t se any reason you shouldn’t join!

Did you know there’s a theater here in San Francisco just for us Urban Cowgirls?

I’ve seen so many wonderful, eclectic, colorful shows at Brava! Theater Center on 24th Street (at York) in the Mission District. The first event I went to there happened even before the space was officially re-opened, and we sat on bleachers in a dripping old theater. My friend JJ says she used to go to movies there when she was a kid for $0.10 a show!

In the last decade or so, the theater has been lovingly and beautifully renovated by people who are committed to the artistic expression of women, people of color, and youth, and to community transformation through the performing arts. By my measure, they’re doing a great job!

Events in the upcoming season include free writing workshops with Josephina Lopez, the author of Real Women Have Curves, a run of Friends, (no, not the sitcom; the 1964 Absurdist Classic written by Japanese playwright and novelist Kobo Abe), comedies, mariachis, healers, movies (try Harold and Maude on Valentine’s Day), classes, an all-day MLK celebration, music from around the world, and more more more!